In his Oscar acceptance speech, Palestinian journalist and activist Basel Adra, seemingly holding back tears, mentioned having just become a father and pleading with the world to help stop the ethnic cleansing of Palestine so his daughter will not have to grow up living in fear as he has had to live.
His film, which I was fortunate to see a couple weeks ago, is one of the most powerful I have ever watched. When the credits started to roll, not a single person in the theater moved. We did not know if we should applaud, or lament, or rage, or just give up on the world.
Justin Barringer
Although No Other Land already won the BAFTA and a number of other prestigious awards, no American distributor would pick it up, so the only way to see it in America was if a nonprofit or activist group offered a showing. I saw it at our public library.
Now it has won an Oscar and is even the highest-grossing documentary film of the year, yet it remains without a distributor. This means while folks in most places in the world can stream it or go see it in a theater, in the U.S. the film cannot be streamed and is only in a limited number of theaters.
America, your anti-Palestinian bias is showing.
Or is it your pro-Israeli bias?
I believe it is an act of resistance, however small, to make a point of seeing No Other Land. This film is worth going out of your way to find a way to see it. Locally, our public library hosted a screening, and a number of independent theaters recently picked it up. While it still is not available via streaming, if you look around your area hopefully you can find someplace showing it.
“Americans and Israelis need to recognize our kinship with Palestinians as fellow humans, potential allies and possible friends.”
But thanks to the hard work of Basel Adra and his Jewish Israeli friend and co-director Yuval Abraham, this revolution will be televised, even as Americans try to prevent that. Yuval offered perhaps the most powerful speech of the night as he called both for an end to the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians as well as the return of hostages taken on October 7. He said, “When I look at Basel, I see my brother. But we are unequal. We live in a regime where I am free under civilian law, and Basel is under military laws that destroy his life and he cannot control.”
There it is. There’s the map for the path forward.
Americans and Israelis need to recognize our kinship with Palestinians as fellow humans, potential allies and possible friends. And we must also confess the inequities Israel and America have imposed on Palestine for many decades and in an ever-expanding and increasingly violent manner.
As we have just entered into the seasons of Lent and Ramadan, let us consider that community, a sense of peace and togetherness, is at the heart of both of our holiday seasons and the path to peace goes squarely through justice.
Today, I was teaching students in my Religion and Violence class about the truth William Cavanaugh articulates in his book, The Myth of Religious Violence, that religions are not monoliths across time and space, and that the way we view Islam is largely a creation, a myth of the Western world, especially the United States since the 1980s when it was the other world power at war in Afghanistan and the United States wanted to unite the Islamic world against the Russians.
Yet this view of Islam as inherently irrational and violent has played a major role in allowing Americans, perhaps especially certain sects of American Christianity, to justify the U.S. continuing to support Israel, even as many allies of the U.S. are accusing them of war crimes and crimes against humanity.
I want Israelis, all of them, to be safe, but I know the church’s long history of connecting peace and justice. From Augustine to liberation theology, Christians have argued that peace must be built on the foundation of justice, a tradition we inherited from our Jewish forebearers.
“Can’t you see that we’re intertwined, that my people can be truly safe if Basel’s people are truly free?”
“Can’t you see that we’re intertwined, that my people can be truly safe if Basel’s people are truly free?” Yuval Abraham pleaded.
Christians, do we not follow the one who said he came to set us free, fully free? If so, then we must work to help Palestinians find freedom from under the expanding Israeli empire. I want the Jewish people to be safe, and I am convinced Yuval is right that their safety and Palestinian freedom are interwoven like the threads of the keffiyeh my Muslim friend bought me recently, after we shared dinner with our Jewish friend who is lamenting how their faith has been captured by bad Christian theology, nationalism and ethnic supremacy to justify what should condemn as unjust.
Pope Paul VI was right, and this applies to the Israeli apartheid as much as any situation on earth right now, “If you want peace, work for justice.”
Justin Bronson Barringer is a scholar, minister, educator and consultant deeply involved in community outreach and development. With a Ph.D. from Southern Methodist University, he teaches religion and ethics and has served on staff in outreach roles at various churches across denominations. He writes regularly at epistlesfrombabylon.substack.com/.
Related articles:
And a biblically illiterate Congressman shall lead them | Opinion by Mark Wingfield
How Zionism poisoned Western Christianity | Opinion by Jack Nassar
Trump resort in Gaza: ‘Blatant, unapologetic idol worship’